On leaving Phnom Penh, and that awkward moment when...

Four weeks have gone by since I set food on Cambodian soil. I am leaving in just a couple hours to head back to Prey Veng for one final week of language before I start my work in Mesang. Things were so busy at first, so much information, and so much unfamiliar that I feel like the first few weeks sort of happened to me, and I was just along for the ride. But now I am starting to get a little bit of a grasp on things. I don’t feel quite so lost at the market or making my way around town. I actually found someone who knows less Khmer than I do (to be fair, she only arrive 4 days ago).

However, being new to the whole ‘living in Cambodia’ thing has not been without its challenges, some of which are due to the fact that I am a foreigner, and others… well let’s face it, they are mostly because I am not from here.

You know that awkward moment when…

                You get lost on the first day to language lessons and the moto-taxi driver wanders around the neighbourhood while you call for directions. (note of explanation: addresses aren’t really used here- you give a well-known landmark that is close to your destination, and give directions from there).

You are sitting in Khmer class and your teacher is translating a sentence into English, and asks you, the “expert”, if it is grammatically correct to use “what” or “which”, and you haven’t got a sweet clue. What is a relative pronoun anyway, and who cares? Prepositions of place, superlatives, adverbs… I think some Cambodians know more English grammar than I do!

                You are sitting around the dinner table eating with a bunch of students, oblivious to the conversation going on in Khmer, and suddenly they turn to you and say “we are all talking about how much we love the colour of your hair.”

                You ask multiple times for a “cell card” (this being the term used by everyone) to top up your cell phone, and finally have to show them an old one, and then they say “ahhh, cell card! (in Khmer accent)” and gives you one.

                 You reply that the food is NOT delicious when you mean quite the opposite.

                You nearly knock someone over at the market… several times. I tagged along with some students who were going clothes shopping at the market and was overwhelmed by the number of young women there; the number of shops; and the never ending maze of shoes, jeans, shirts, skirts, and PEOPLE. Those of you who know me may be surprized to know that I felt a whole lot clumsy and even a little bit tall.

                But jokes aside, I have had a lot of time to think this week and let it finally sink in that I am actually here for an entire year. And I don’t know how to explain it, but being here feels right. I know that God lead me here this year. I was thinking back to where I was a year ago- of all the thing I could have imagined doing after graduation, never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be going to Cambodia. Yet here I am. And who knows where this will lead me to in the future. As I prepare to settle in to a more “normal” life living with a host family and starting work, I hope to have more time to reflect on all that God has done to bring me here, the gifts he has given me to share, the promises he has for me, and pray that he would open my eyes to the ways he is growing in me.  

Yours,

Rebecca

Flowers at the Royal Palace

Dyke roads such as this are scattered everywhere.
This one currently under repair surrounds the museum grounds.

 

















Memorial momument at "killing fields" museum we visited
 this week just outside of Phnom Penh.